Paul Petter Waldenström (alternately spelled "Paul Peter") (20 July 1838 – 14 July 1917) was a Swedish lecturer, priest in the Church of Sweden and theologian, member of the Riksdag, and writer, who became the most prominent leader of the free church movement in late 19th-century Sweden.

[5] On the death of revivalist and founder of the Swedish Evangelical Mission [Evangeliska fosterlandsstiftelsen] Carl Olof Rosenius in 1868, Waldenström became editor of Pietisten,[6] a publication founded by Rosenius and Methodist George Scott and associated with the free church movement.

In 1876 he was dismissed as the provincial representative of the Swedish Evangelical Mission after celebrating a private communion service in Uppsala.

He then served as preacher at Immanuel Church in Stockholm and traveled to North America, where he had a number of followers.

Together with Erik Jakob Ekman (1842–1915), he founded the Swedish Mission Covenant (Svenska Missionsförbundet) in 1878,[8] which in 2011 became part of the Uniting Church in Sweden.

The fact that Waldenström spent 11 years translating the New Testament from Greek to Swedish shows his devotion to the texts.

His influence is not limited to translation and exegesis; he also wrote on a variety of theological topics and became a key figure in the Nyevangelism movement.

[3] From 1884 to 1905, Waldenström was a member of the Riksdag's lower house (Andra kammaren), elected in the Gävle city constituency, where he focused on church and temperance issues.

[9] Waldenström married Matilda Fredrika Teodora Hallgren (born 1848 in Låssa, Uppsala County).